Finding a More Pleasant Compliance Illusion Method for a Hand-Held Device

A compliance illusion can be created if vibration bursts, called friction grains, are provided in response to changes in pressing force on a surface. This method has been used in many human-computer interaction applications. For instance, it can enrich virtual controls on a hand-held device with compliant feeling. However, one of the limitations of this method is that the friction grains that it uses feel “bumpy” and “buzzing,” which may pose a hurdle to the adoption of the method by consumer products where the affective quality of tactile feedback is important. To overcome this limitation, we examined an alternative compliance illusion method, which computes the time derivative of the force applied by the user, and uses it to modulate a base vibration signal. We conducted a magnitude estimation experiment and showed that the alternative method with a sinusoidal base vibration signal can create significantly less bumpy, less buzzing, and thereby less unpleasant tactile feedback compared with the grain-based method while achieving the same level of compliance illusion effect as the grain-based method.